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“Just don’t get mugged,” Mike had said, pressing some money into his hand for a cab as he retreated from a full dinner plate, an untouched pint. “Take a cab.”
So John had. Some good that’d done.
John sputtered, his mouth twitching uncontrollably with amusement. The old cabbie furrowed his eyebrows, and something in his gaze faltered, betraying uncertainty even as his shoulders tensed and his spine went straight. “Shoot me?” John chuckled. “Go ahead. Won’t be the first time, mate.”
The cabbie’s finger shuddered on the trigger, wavering. John stared down the barrel, the primal, instinctive part of his brain screaming out in alarm at the familiar view of black; a short tunnel with a deadly bullet, shooting off in a violent, half-second frenzy and leaving behind nothing but blood splatter and gunsmoke.
John grinned wryly. What a sick sense of humor , he thought - he wished for a warzone, and got a toy gun and an old man. He repeats to himself, with fervor, What a sick sense of humor. He hadn’t felt this much laughter bubbling in his chest since before his shoulder, before his leg, before the burning desert sand turned to golden snow beneath his limp body, freezing as dusk dripped to midnight.
The old man flickered his eyes over John’s face, and finally seemed to decide something. The end of his finger trembled over the trigger, pushing it just to the point before shooting, and John watched with rapt attention as the thick hand pulled it over the threshold with a soft click.
There was no bullet, no gunsmoke, and no blood splatter. John knew that this would happen, and he smiled impishly as the fluttering blaze from the end of the lighter cast soft heat an inch from his eyelid.
“So,” the cabbie said, giving John a grim expression, “you know your guns.”
“I sure hope so. I handled them for years.”
A dawning understanding flooded his eyes, and a sliver of resigned hindsight twitched in the corner of his tight mouth. “Police?”
John raised his eyebrows. “Army.”
The cabbie hummed, lowering the not-gun. “None of the others knew their guns.”
“Others?” John studied the unmemorable face, the grey hair, the rounded outline of a body turned from muscle to flab. ‘I’ll make you kill yourself,’ he had said. It snapped in place. “Oh, shit. ‘Serial suicides’.”
The cabbie stared at John silently.
“You’re a right murderer,” John said unnecessarily, gazing up from his perched spot at the edge of the faded backseat, its corners on their way to falling apart at the seams. He steeled his gaze, studying the cabbie’s now nervous glances towards the driver’s seat. This was no longer funny. The faces of four civilians, hazy in his memory of the TV, flashed through his mind. John slowly reached next to him and gripped the cool metal spine of his cane, folding his fingers around it in a tight grip.
“Hypocritical from a soldier,” the cabbie replied idly. He fiddled with the keys in the pocket of his trousers, and John tuned into the soft jingling as the metals rubbed and clinked against each other. His grip on the fake gun alleviated slightly, threatening to clatter to the blacktop. John could tell the exact moment the man decided to take his chance.
His grip tightened almost violently on the lighter, and he swung it towards John’s temple just as he lunged for the front seat. John dodged the attempt, the barrel scraping across his forehead unpleasantly, and he thrust himself from his seat, jabbing the cane out towards the cabbie and knocking him away from the car door.
The blunt handle landed forcefully on the cabbie’s sternum, and John followed swiftly to put his body between the wheezing cabbie and the car. The thrill of a fight ached in his veins, adrenaline pumping with the steady drum of his heart and shaking with anticipation in his bones. He minutely unclenched his grip on the cane, adjusting it, and tightened it again. His leg twinged a little, and it hurt, but he ignored it. He’d felt worse.
John’s body was thin and his muscles had faded after their lack of use, emaciated through months of infection and illness and depression. His shoulder would scream after this, he knew. He flickered his gaze to the fake gun on the ground. The cement was awash in a lazy white from the streetlight.
He thought of his name in the news headlines, the photo of his dead face plastered over the television. A cautionary tale. It made his stomach turn, aching to vomit a meal he hadn’t eaten.
He braced himself as the cabbie recovered. Barely two seconds had passed.
The cabbie threw himself at John, wringing his large hands around his neck and slamming him back into the car. John winced, choking and gasping, scratching at the knuckles with dull nails as his cane slid from his hand. He kicked his legs out, trying to feel for some solid ground, and jabbed the heel of his foot into the cabbie’s knee.
His hands loosened as he grunted in pain, and John took the chance to throw an effective right hook, his fist making contact with the cabbie’s left eye and cheekbone, and the impact ran up his arm in a crescendo of discomfort that he elected to ignore. The cabbie cried out and his hands slipped away from John’s neck, whose feet dropped back onto solid ground.
He coughed and rubbed his throat, and the cabbie took advantage of his incapacitated situation to slam the heel of his hand into John’s face. It hit with a sickening crunch on the side of his nose and his head clobbered into the car. Pain flared up across John’s face and blood spurted from his nose, dripping into his gasping mouth. Broken, his brain supplied helpfully, and he neglected the thought.
Calm focus suddenly sang through his limbs, and John grabbed the cane, promptly swinging it at the cabbie like a bat. It hammered the side of the face he was still cradling, and he cried out again, falling to the ground. John hurled the cane at his face again, hitting solidly, and the cabbie went unconscious.
Panting, John dropped the cane to the ground. He sniffed violently, trying to breath around the globs of blood in his nose, and quickly undid his belt from where it was fastened around his waist on its tightest loop. His pants sagged, falling partway down his legs, and he silently bemoaned the way it chafed against his skin-and-bone hips, but didn’t pay it much mind beyond a fleeting consideration. The few times he had managed to look at himself in the mirror had been time enough to hate what his body had become.
He jumped onto the cabbie, still unconscious on the ground, and skillfully wrangled his limp arms behind him, one knee digging into the spine. He wrapped the belt around the wrists as tight as he could manage, multiple times over, and secured it. He bent over and felt around the cabbie’s neck, huffing softly when his pulse thudded through his fingertips.
The cabbie stirred, and John heightened the pressure of his knee in warning. Blood dripped from his chin onto the cabbie’s sweater, and he quickly wiped the gathering red off his lips and chin, which only smeared it. He licked his lips and it tasted of metal. He spit, cringing.
John stood up from the body, twisting sluggishly but confined enough for the moment. He flipped the cabbie over and rummaged through his pockets, tossing the keys away near the fake gun, followed by a wallet and a cell phone. There were two pill bottles deep in the cabbie’s jacket pocket, and John stared at them quizzically for a moment, then set them down near the rest of the man’s belongings, careful not to break them. That was definitely evidence.
He left the cabbie on his back, his hands wedged between his body and the ground, and pulled out his own cell, his thumb brushing absently over the engraving of Clara and Harry’s names on the back. He dialed the emergency number, told them the situation the best he could -
“What do you mean you solved the serial suicides? Are you a cop?”
“I didn’t solve them,” John answered, for the third time, irritation thrumming as an ache in his shoulder, “the bloody murderer picked me up and - christ, mate, can’t you just send a car?”
- and sat down beside his handicapped would-be murderer to wait.
—
Strangely enough, the first car to arrive on scene, not 5 minutes later, was not a police car, but another cab. John glanced up once from where he’s bent over, ruining his undershirt with the blood from his nose as he tries to keep it from clogging up his throat. He’s successful, mostly, though his mouth still tasted like when he was a small kid, licking at the ice on light posts; undeniably, unmistakably metallic. His jumper and flannel were in a heap beside him, removed to save them the fate his threadbare undershirt suffered.
He did a double take at the ominous black cab and swallowed thickly, his mind running through possible scenarios of… what? Accomplices? A whole underground cabbie murder ring that he’s about to bust wide open?
He grinned, feeling silly, imagining an abandoned warehouse filled with a hundred old cabbie men that dressed worse than he does. He also felt a little woozy. The adrenaline had dwindled, replaced by the unbroken pride of a job well done, an ache in his shoulder that bemoaned of further recovery to come, and a dizzy headache.
He wondered briefly if he had hit his head hard enough to cause a concussion, but he knew what a concussion felt like, having received his fair share of injuries throughout his life. Punishment from his Da, roughhousing with Harry, rugby, ill-advised bar fights, the army… his life was always just a little violent. Even in friendly competition. Maybe especially then.
He remembered belatedly that he hadn’t eaten anything other than toast that day, and that was very early in the morning. Dawn, or pre-dawn, when the sane world was still asleep and his sheets still clung to the remainder of his body heat and sweat after he awoke with a gasp to moonlight like a kiss on his face, seeping through the open window.
God, he sighed, this has been a shit day . He watched as a tall figure pulled themself gracefully from the cab, flinging a handful of bills through the passenger window. The cab skidded away, leaving a small wave of raised pebbles in its wake. The person stood beneath a glaring streetlight, and his silhouette cut a sharp, inky contrast to the light, as if somebody had taken a snatch of the night sky and placed it on earth.
John wondered idly if cursing could ever count as prayer. He wished for a distinct lack of killer accomplices, decided this newcomer probably wasn’t one, but stood up anyway. He glanced at his cane and his leg groaned, the forgotten pain - it was gone, he realized, for however shortly - flaring up with a vengeance. He cursed himself a little more and grabbed the cane.
The figure started at a brisk jog, slipping from the streetlight and into the night towards John. John sniffed, feeling slightly thankful that his nose was no longer gushing a disconcerting amount of blood down his front.
He bunched the drowning waistband of his trousers in one hand to keep himself from unintentionally flashing his briefs at this stranger. Unless they were a threat. Then maybe he’d give them an eyeful. Put off their appetite for a bit. Psychological warfare.
He leaned heavily on the cane as the stranger came to a stop, his eyes devouring the scene with such intense passion John believed for a moment he might actually cry out in triumph. They passed over John with barely an acknowledgement, like rain over his skin, which was a little strange because he was sure he made something of a spectacle, bloody and bruised and… cane-equipped as he was. But there’s also a murderer at their feet, so he could understand it.
The tall man bent over the cabbie, whose eyes were stubbornly closed. John might not have gotten a concussion, but he didn't think the cabbie was so lucky.
The man turned his gaze on John skeptically for a short moment, and, oh , John thought. His eyes were a pale blue, almost grey, like the halo around the moon, ethereal and otherworldly. A silver lining. Dawn in the distance; morning over the horizon after a sleepless night. A snatch of sky, indeed.
“Hm?” John hummed, a second too late, realizing the man had said something to him. He should’ve eaten lunch. He blinked, his head feeling suddenly heavy.
The man was already staring into the cabbie’s face, who groaned as the man lifted his eyelids with gloved hands, gazing at the pupils quizzically. “I asked how he did it, if he’s the murderer you claim he is,” he replied tightly, moving from one eye to the next. He glanced up at John. “I don’t doubt it, but evidence is typically appreciated by the police.”
John inclined his head toward the pile of belongings, the two glass bottles glinting in the light. “Pills, I figure. Said he’d make me kill myself.” The man hummed and didn’t bother standing up, simply lurching towards the pile with catlike precision and snatching up the bottles. He held them to the light, as if he could discern some sort of secret from them if he looked hard enough, then shoved them into his pocket with a soft rattling and returned to his examination of the cabbie.
After a moment he huffed, standing from the crouch, and the expensive looking coat draped down over his lean frame. He was long, like stretched taffy, with a distinct lack of gangly uncertainness. “You’ve given him a concussion,” he stated matter-of-factly. He tugged his phone from one of the deep pockets of his coat and rapidly typed something out, dropping it back into his coat promptly.
John licked his lips, blinking harshly as a new bout of dizziness muddled his thoughts. “Yes, I thought so. And - well, he pointed a gun at me,” he replied, suddenly defensive. “It was hardly an escalation.”
A twitch of a smirk hovered at the edge of the man’s lips. He strode past John and bent over, picking up the gun shaped lighter.
“It’s a fake,” he raised an eyebrow, turning it over in his hands with intent focus. “I think an army man such as yourself should have noticed, don’t you?” He clicked on the little flame, watching it against the blacktop for a second before flicking it off again.
John’s cheeks flushed dully at being called out. Not wanting to be thought a fool, he answered, half-kidding, “Maybe I was insulted. Does being insulted count as justification for inflicting bodily harm?”
The man smirked again, amusement in his eyes. “No, but I’m fairly sure his status as a wanted criminal will absolve you from any legal responsibility.”
John pursed his lips, and suddenly a spark of surprise pushed through the cloud of his headache. He repeated, bewildered, “Army man?”
The man huffed and rolled his eyes upward, looking painfully long-suffering. “Obvious. Tan, posture, haircut, capacity for violence. Though you were clearly invalidated home…” he trailed off, running his gaze over John’s thin frame.
A pause. “Hm…” he glanced down at the cabbie, his face twisted in consideration. “More than sufficient in hand-to-hand combat, but not in any specific martial arts or technique. Rather street-like. Resourceful - you used your own belt as a binding, and you hit him with your cane, didn’t you?” he didn’t wait for John to answer, crouching down again to raise the silent cabbie and examine the thorough wrapping around his wrists. “Dexterous, as well. He couldn’t have been out for more than 30 seconds. I’d be shocked if it even made it to that.”
“I’ve always been good with my hands,” John said awkwardly, fumbling through his confused amazement. The man turned his sharp attention to John again.
John quipped sheepishly, an afterthought when he saw the attention stray to the deepening black and blue on John’s knuckles, “When I’m not breaking them on, uh…” the man stood up, looking at John in slight amusement, “faces of…” John cleared his throat. Oh, God , he thought, groaning inwardly in self-accusation, and his tongue felt like lead in his mouth, his temple beating as he churned through the soup of almost-words in his head, “murderous, erm, cab drivers.”
The man hummed in acknowledgment, his fingers tapping restlessly where they rested on his thigh, and John shifted uncomfortably, feeling exposed without his layers of shirts. There were old scars on his arms, and his trousers were falling down, only kept up by his tight grip on the fabric, so he couldn’t even rub them to calm the itch that simmered in his bones. He’s cold, he’s tired, and he’s not hungry, but his brain was giving him due warning that if he did not get food in his system right about now he would collapse.
Soon.
In front of a mysterious, handsome stranger, covered in blood and bruises and looking for all intents and purposes like a breathing skeleton.
Oh, God, he repeated, cursing himself, and God, and feeling for all the world that he should have just taken the sodding tube.
But he stood a little straighter all the same. Tightened his grip on his way-too-big jeans and felt like a child, his Da’s angry voice in his ear.
“On your way home from a pub.” The man leaned in and sniffed, his nose twitching cutely, and John blinked at him, bewildered. “You didn’t drink or eat, though. Go to meet someone, then? Reluctantly. An old friend, I’m guessing.”
“Uni mate,” John replied, on autopilot, and the stranger nodded sagely. He paused.
The man continued, a new layer of uneasiness in his expression, “You are also possibly unemployed and… frightfully underweight.” John looked at the man’s own body. He could tell, even through all the layers, that the leanness was just this side of healthy. He cringed at what a sorry sight he must make to someone in such good shape, then felt stupid for pitying himself. He’s fine. It’s fine. “Have you developed an eating disorder, or is it the depression? PTSD?”
John blinked at the man again, offense flickering in his chest, but it died down almost instantly, replaced with incredulous mirth. “Did you just ask me if my mental illness is ruining my physical health?”
The man seemed a little unsure, looking like he had stuck his foot in his mouth, but he spoke surely, “Yes.”
John chuckled, and shook his head, ducking down and only barely catching himself from releasing his jeans to rub a palm over his face in exasperation. That also would’ve jostled his still very-broken nose, he realized, and was a little thankful his hands were otherwise occupied.
“Then, yes,” John said around another chuckle, “it’s the depression. PTSD. And, or. Both, maybe.”
“Is that what your therapist said?” The man asked, his voice still deceptively confident, even as his face worked through a series of microexpressions that betrayed his emotion: surprise, doubt, confusion, and a tiny smile, pulling hopefully but dutifully stifled. John had learned to be good at reading expressions.
John raised both eyebrows and grinned in spite of himself. “How’d you figure that out, genius?”
The man blinked, caught in the headlights, and John watched with no short supply of wonder as a rosy pink replaced the pale white of his skin, high on his cheekbones. He stumbled, “Uh, w-” cleared his throat, obviously irritated at himself, “You have PTSD, recently invalidated. Of course you have a therapist.” He glanced down at John’s leg, seemed to inwardly battle with something, then added before John got a chance to reply, “Your limp is also psychosomatic. Partly, at least.”
The incredulous laughter hummed joyfully in John’s chest. “That’s brilliant,” he said reverently, his mouth pulled into a tilted, disbelieving grin. “You got that just from looking at me?” He stared up at the man’s unconventional face, scanning over the sharp shadows cut by the streetlight, admiring the soft blush that the man was steadfastly ignoring.
The man blinked, narrowed his eyes with the same skeptical look he had given John earlier, then mellowed out into a tentative, soft expression, precursing what might be a smile, if John played his cards right. “Yes. You… think so?”
“Yeah,” John breathed, “it’s amazing. Really.” The right card. The man’s face morphed into a pleasant smile, genuine and fuzzy. Beautiful. There was another pause, and though the man was still studying John’s face, it felt less like being put under a microscope - more like simple appreciation, admiring a particularly skillful or emotional piece of art. Then John felt silly for thinking like that at all, because obviously that was not admiration. Could not be. Obviously.
John said quickly, cutting off his own annoyance at his mind’s change in direction, “Are you the best man?”
The man’s face scrunched up, confused. He replied instantly, sounding like a lost child, “Hah?” Then the flush deepened a shade, and he sputtered, “I mean, what on earth are you talking about?”
John pinched his lips thinly, barely managing to suppress his laughter. ‘Hah’, he says. John wondered how many times he’s been caught off guard so thoroughly. “On the telly, that inspector said he’s got his ‘best man’ on the case. Are you him?”
The man sniffed and his figure straightened, his shoulders squaring and spine snapping to full height. At attention, dripping with absolute pride and self-confidence. “Yes,” he replied, and John usually doesn’t feel this short. “Frankly, I’m the best at what I do.” He smirked a bit. “I think I’ve proven that well enough.”
“And humble, to boot,” John mumbled without heat.
The whine of police sirens echoed in the distance. The man glanced towards the road, looking almost chastised, as if police doing their job was a personal slight interrupting their time together. John felt a little flattered. His head hurt, and he shut his eyes against the pain. The man was looking at him with worry when he opened his eyes again.
John grimaced and glanced at the man apologetically, slowly lowering himself to the ground. He leaned back against the car, and the man immediately sat down beside him, sliding into a criss cross position with the unhuman fluidity of honey. Or a very agile cat. John felt a bit bumbling in comparison, but he figured everybody probably felt a little bit like that around him.
He breathed heavily out of his open mouth, feeling wrung out. His nose was still clogged but he could hardly be bothered to do anything, deciding to leave the work until he had something other than an old undershirt to help him out. The man waited patiently until John prompted, “And you’re a detective at the Yard?
The man cringed. “Working for those idiots? No.” John raised an eyebrow. The man continued, his voice still filled with pride, “I’m a consulting detective. They come to me for help when they’re out of their depth.”
“Which was now,” John observed astutely, looking at the cabbie, bent over in a sitting position. His head was lolling a bit, eyes shut as he waited with resignation for the proper authorities to arrive and take him into custody.
The man amended disdainfully, “Which is always.” The police sirens were louder, approaching rapidly.
John chuckled, and the man looked at him in surprise. His lips shuddered between frown and smile for a moment, unsure how to react, before slipping easily into a pleased grin. “Well,” John said wryly, “none of you were very much help this time.”
The man almost frowned, but John grinned drowsily at him, cutting off his uncertainty. “I’m teasing,” he stage-whispered, not unkind, and the man was abashed, but returned the expression with something a little close to fondness. If they hadn’t just met, John would think that’s what it was.
He stuck out his long, pale hand. “Sherlock Holmes,” the detective said, and it felt like an introduction. John’s head spun. He blinked forcefully, the light beaming as if he was looking straight into the sun, and took the hand.
“John Watson,” he replied. They held onto each other’s hands, maybe a beat too long, gazing thoughtfully, and then John mumbled, “Well, Mr. Holmes, I think I might pass out.”
Sherlock nodded imperceptibly, and their hands dropped away, leaving a tingling sensation from where Sherlock’s fingers had wrapped around the developing bruise on John’s knuckles. “Call me Sherlock. And yes, I noticed.”
“Course you did, genius.”
He was ignored. “When did you last eat?”
John hummed. “Hell, mate, a proper meal?” Sherlock said nothing, staring at him expectantly. John continued timidly, his nose and neck and hand and, shit, his head throbbing as he finally let himself rest, “Dunno. I had something this morning.” It felt a little intimate to share something like that, and John was annoyed that he had at all, so he added jokingly, “You gonna bring me some dinner, then? Keep me from falling over you? I really just might.”
Sherlock’s mouth twitched, his cupid's bow twisting as he caught the inner half of his bottom lip between his teeth. John didn’t even see the teeth, just his lip disappearing slightly, but it still sent an alarm bell of appreciation through his chest. He swallowed.
“I’d be amenable,” Sherlock said, but didn’t elaborate, and John looked up from Sherlock’s mouth to his dawn eyes, and saw that his pupils were gradually pulling away at the color. John’s lips opened limply, parting just a bit in realization.
A series of police cars and ambulances drove into the near deserted, aside from the three of them, car park.
John’s tongue stalled in his mouth, hesitating, then flicked out over his lips. Sherlock watched, and John was sure that his cheeks were burning up because he can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like that. Attraction, maybe. He could barely believe it. He didn’t, really - felt like an imposter, swallowed by clothes two sizes too big and wasting away in his own skin as this modern Adonis of a man looked at him with something other than pity. He again wondered how hard he actually hit his head.
“You didn’t hit your head that hard,” said Sherlock, and John snapped his eyes back up at him in shock.
“Did I say that aloud?” John asked incredulously, then whispered, more to himself than to Sherlock, “Christ, I really am going ‘round the bend.”
Sherlock laughed then, and even though it was likely at John, John found himself enraptured by his movements. He rested his head back against the car, displaying his long, pale neck to the air, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as a low chuckle bubbled up through his chest. There was a quiet discoloration of the skin beneath his ear, striped over his neck like a paint stroke. He wondered what caused it. He swallowed.
Sherlock grinned at the sky, then turned his attention back towards John through the corners of his eyes. “You’re delightful,” he said, and John blinked, not sure what that meant. It felt like being gawked at, but Sherlock’s eyes were so damn pretty he thought that he wouldn’t mind being gawked at by him. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t a spectacle. It was appreciation. John’s ears warmed at the tips.
There were a series of closing doors and assertive voices, and John tensed. Sherlock’s smile drained, and he pointed at John’s head. “You didn’t say it aloud,” he said softly, and slowly reached over, pulling John’s hand away from where it was rubbing soothingly at his temple. “You only have exceptionally expressive body language.”
He took John’s face in his hands, moving hesitant and loose in case John chose to tug away, and then it could be brushed off as a little social stumble and ignored. John didn’t pull away, only wincing briefly as Sherlock ran his thumb pad over the same spot he had been rubbing a moment ago.
“You’ll have a nasty bruise,” he continued, gently moving John’s face back to stare into his eyes. His fingertips scratched gingerly at his scalp behind his ears, skimming over his nape and brushing at the bristled hairs, and John realized that this was the most he’d been touched since his initial recovery, when he couldn’t even stand on his own. He didn’t remember the last time before that. “Your entire face will be black and blue, in fact. That nose break is horrible.”
“Terrible timing,” whispered John. “I had a job interview tomorrow, you know. As a GP. Guess that’s out the window.” He didn’t know why he was saying all this. Sherlock’s fingers felt like hot iron on his skin.
“The medical world despairs your loss, Doctor,” Sherlock replied, emphasising the title. He had a self satisfied little smirk pulling at his lips, and resumed his examination.
He tipped John’s head back a bit, and John was vaguely aware of a dozen footsteps approaching them. “Your neck. He nearly strangled you.” A frown, pinched eyebrows. John swallowed, again, and Sherlock’s fingertips bumped over his Adam’s apple.
“He did strangle me,” John mumbled breathily, and his face felt warm as he realized exactly what he sounded like. “Didn’t kill me, though.”
Sherlock gave a small smile. “Yes, I have a feeling it takes a bit more than that to get rid of you.” Figures arrived near them then, John catching a glimpse of faces that looked pained just at the sight of him, and Sherlock dipped John’s head. “You won't look very nice, but you didn’t hit yourself hard enough to start hallucinating.”
“Oh,” he said stupidly, and Sherlock’s hands slipped away, leaving palm-sized fire in their wake. John opened and closed his mouth. “I’ve never been much of a looker, anyway,” he whispered lamely.
Sherlock’s face did a strange thing, and he looked pained, like the officers looking at him with curious consideration. He gave John’s body a careful once over, and John almost shuddered. He gripped his jeans tightly, and Sherlock replied, “I severely doubt that,” and flipped his gaze onto a man who had just approached. John recognized him as the DI from the telly.
There was a lot of official-seeming movement, then; they properly cuffed the cabbie and marched him off to… somewhere, and John was gathered up like a child, ushered into the ambulance where he was checked over by the paramedics. He was annoyed at them for touching him and treating him as though he couldn’t take care of himself, and then he was annoyed at himself for feeling that way because they were only doing their job. He opted to simply stop thinking, because his head never worked quite right, anyhow.
They transported him to the hospital, along with the concussed cabbie. They told him his nose was broken, which he knew, and the older woman on duty stuffed his nose with gauze and splinted it.
“Get into fights often?” She asked, pleasant and absently conversational.
John replied, nasal, “All the time. I’m a thug. Can’t you tell?” She glanced him over, and they shared a small, joking grin. He was fed subpar hospital food that went down his throat with the consistency of toothpaste, and drank three cups of chilly water that helped to wash it down.
They kept him for a bit, and a silver-haired detective with tired eyes and a nicotine patch peeking through his rolled up sleeves came to talk to him. John gave his statement; where he’d been, what he’d been doing, and most importantly what his murderous friend had tried to do.
“I used my cane as a weapon,” John relayed, and realized then that he didn’t know where the hell his cane was. “Bugger.” He stared morosely at his leg, a pulse of pain prancing through the nerves in his thigh in response to the attention.
Lestrade - D.I. Gregory Lestrade, he said his name was - tapped his pen against the notepad. “Don’t worry, mate. Sherlock’s got it for you.”
“Sherlock?” John blinked at him.
Lestrade looked more reluctantly accepting than understanding. He heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head, “You’d know more about it than me. Haven’t got a clue why he’s stuck around, frankly - I managed to wrangle the evidence away from him, those pills you found, which is more than we usually get.”
John decided not to question this, even as he raised an incredulous eyebrow, because that was maybe a bit not good in terms of the legal process. He finished giving his statement, and Lestrade thanked him with a brotherly pat on the shoulder. John flinched back a little, the touch flaring like a hot iron, and Lestrade drew the hand back, not mentioning it. He departed with a dim professional smile.
He remained in the small, sterile space until the nice older nurse came back around and told him he was set to go. She also reminded him to keep out of trouble and to get the nose checked out again sometime soon, and John nodded dutifully until she retreated.
He slipped out of the door after she had departed. Sherlock was leaning against the wall beside the room, his coat collar popped up over his cheekbones, glaring a hole into the empty space of the hallway. John’s cane hung limply from his hand, the other one stuffed into his pocket.
John greeted, “You were right.”
Sherlock stared at him, his sky-eyes traveling all over John’s face, a soft frown tugging at his lips. “I always am.” John grinned a little. Sherlock said, “About what?”
“I didn’t hit my head so hard. Horrible nose break, though.”
“Mm,” Sherlock acknowledged. “And the limp?”
“Limp?”
“Has it gone?”
“Has it-” John blinked and cocked his head. “I don’t know. I can’t tell. If it has gone, it won’t be for long.” Tonight his limp had the same annoying changeability as a day filled with nomadic clouds: the sun shone, and then five minutes later the blue was replaced with the same thunderstorm gray as an Autumn in London.
Sherlock’s eyes travelled over his form, standing tall and comfortable in its stillness. He adjusted his grip on the cane. “If you walk, will you fall over?”
John huffed out a breath that sounded like bewilderment, if air could sound like anything. “Maybe?”
Nodding once, sharply, Sherlock took a step back. “Go on, then.”
“I- what?” Now John was properly bewildered.
Sherlock puffed out a breath of his own, this one sounding distinctly like the words ‘just do as I say, would you?’. “Walk.” He paused, then said, “Please.” His voice grit the word out with the eloquence of nails on a chalkboard.
John closed his eyes, shaking his head all the while, and laughed out his disbelief. When he opened them, Sherlock was still watching him, a spark of laughter shining in the little scrunch around his eyes, though his face was otherwise impassive. John sighed.
He took a step with his left foot toward Sherlock. He lifted his right leg, and could feel as the momentum went down that it would not hold, even though it had just a moment ago - he cursed like a sailor as pinpricks of invisible needles shot through his veins, folding the limb beneath him like paper. He shut his eyes away from the rapidly approaching tile of the hospital floor, but blessedly did not disturb the very broken nose he had just had splinted, his fall ended in a much kinder manner.
Instead, he was enveloped in a tall, warm body, and opened his eyes to find Sherlock’s arm flung out to keep him upright, his head smashed against Sherlock’s chest, right over the charcoal button up. A waft of fading soap seeped from the fabric, something softly floral, like lavender. He glanced up at the detective and flashed him an almost playful smile, even as his cheeks flooded with shame, because he was nothing if not self deprecating. Sherlock grasped his shoulders, his ears a bit too red, and guided John upright onto steady feet.
Sherlock cleared his throat and awkwardly thrust the cane out toward John. “It’s rather fickle, your leg.”
“Bad timing, too,” John replied, accepting the cane. He tapped the bottom twice against his calve and silently resented the fact that he felt no pain in it. Not even a phantom. He added, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to fall on you.” He thought about the fact that he’d warned Sherlock he might, earlier, when his head was spinning circles around him. He thought about how Sherlock had called the idea ‘amenable’, and the entire situation felt like an impossible fantasy.
“I don’t mind,” Sherlock said, and John gave him an assessing look as Sherlock’s face twisted like his mouth was stuffed full of lemon. Amusement fizzed up John’s throat like soda bubbles, and it popped his mouth open into another grin.
John answered, “Good?”, the word trailing off with a fat question mark at the end.
“Yes…?” replied Sherlock, and his trail was wandering and endless, his question mark in sore need of a diet. They stared at each other for a few moments, and then both opened their mouths.
“Would-”
“I guess-”
John stopped and cleared his throat, feeling once again like a child, his heart fluttering nervously in his chest. Get it together, Watson. Get it together. “You first,” he offered.
Sherlock hesitated, his hand raised halfway towards some kind of gesture. It retreated into his coat pocket. “There’s a car outside to take you home,” he told John, and the words were weak, flopping lamely onto the tile between their feet. “Driven by Sergeant Donovan. I can’t attest to her skills as a driver, but I suppose you’ll have to make do.”
“Will I?”
Sherlock seemed put out and huffed a small breath of fleeting frustration. “Well, I assume you’d rather not jump into another cab just yet. And I can’t drive, so that’s out of the question.”
John stared at him for a beat too long, contemplating the fact that the statement implied that if Sherlock could drive, he would not hesitate to do so for John. The little bubbles shot through his veins, and John giggled. “Of course.”
For a few moments, Sherlock regained that microscope-like focus. “What were you going to say?”
“Ah, just- that I guess I should get going.”
Apparently that was not quite the response Sherlock had hoped for. Microexpressions. Slight retraction from John, tightening at the corner of his lips and eyes. John didn’t know what this meant, and swallowed, watching Sherlock watch him. Then Sherlock agreed, “Yes. It’s late. Though you don’t sleep much.”
John darted his tongue over his bottom lip. “No, I don’t.” He gazed at Sherlock, hoping to stretch the moment on and on, for some reason; stretch it the way genetics had stretched Sherlock’s long, taffy limbs.
Sherlock gazed right back, equally silent, equally strangely considering, until a young man in scrubs accidentally jostled John on his way by with a mumbled ‘sorry, sorry’. Sherlock’s eyes snapped into detached focus and he spun on his heel, feet light like a dancer’s, and said as John stumbled to catch up, “I’ll walk you out.” Sherlock’s presence beside him was heavy as they passed through the brightly lit hospital halls.
Stepping out into the night, John breathed a deep sigh, his exhaustion leisurely morphing into something that could resemble sleepiness, if he had a lie down for a few hours. The iridescent hospital light spilled over the pavement through the glass doors, and a few yards down along the curb a police car idled, its engine humming and headlights on. They, ever so careful, obviously stalling, dragged their feet toward the car.
“Right, then,” said John, and Sherlock stared down at him, his hands hovering with uncertainty at his sides. He thought that there were words, somewhere; a ‘do you want to get dinner’, or ‘could I see you again’, or the ever practical ‘I think you’re quite fit,’ but none of them seemed to match into whatever social rules John’s ingrained in his psyche for this situation. Whatever those may be. “Erm.” John glanced at the passenger door. He opened and closed his mouth. “Bye.”
“Yes,” Sherlock replied. “Goodbye.”
John grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. He paused, fingertips tapping deftly against the metal. He flicked his gaze to Sherlock. Hell , he thought. “Will I… see you around?”
Sherlock answered, his face sliced through with something that might be a smile, “Unlikely.”
“Ah,” nodded John, his own almost-smile twisting across his face, “alright.” He slipped into the police car, cane first, and Sherlock shut the door behind him. The movement was dulled and sluggish, like Sherlock was pulling his arm through molasses.
The officer beside him, a black woman dressed out of uniform - Donovan - gave him a strange look. She asked to clarify his address, and John told her with an ever-polite “thanks” tacked onto the end.
John stared out of the window as she started up the car, pulling slowly across the pavement. Sherlock’s pale face cut a slash in the night, and his dark clothing had a similar impact upon the glaring hospital entrance. Sherlock raised a hand, but didn’t wave, caught between friendly and distant. John quirked a smile and raised his own hand, watching his figure fade into the background until he couldn’t make out the conflicted expression on his face before turning forward.
Donovan asked, “Do you know him?”
“No,” he replied simply. He caught a glimpse of dark, intelligent eyes when she glanced at him, shrouded in late moonlight through the windshield. “Not really.”
“Lucky you,” she said. “You’d do best to stay away from him.”
John was not especially moved. He avoided looking at her, a little ball of indignation forming in his chest. “Would I?”
“He’s a freak,” she told him, the ‘k’ clicking somewhat unpleasantly in the back of her throat. “Gets off on crime, murder - he was beside himself when he found out that the murderer had supposedly been found because he was hell bent on finiding him himself. How he figured that out before the police is really just another point away from him. He’s got no respect for justice.”
John thought that he was maybe being too inwardly defensive of a person he’d hardly known for a night. He also found that he really couldn’t be bothered to care, because he - he liked Sherlock, what little he’d seen of him. It’s disconcerting that he could make a decision so quick as that, but he chose not to think about it. He’d learned to be good at that. Keep calm, carry on.
“Ta,” he answered, thumping his cane once, lightly, on the car bottom. He looked out of the window as London passed him by in colorful, moonlit brushstrokes of people and cars and buildings, and they finished the ride in silence.
(As the police car faded from view, Sherlock dropped his forehead into the heel of his palm. That was horrifyingly awkward. A warmth danced on his cheeks, and he cringed at himself. When it’s required, he’s usually better at chatting people up. It’s rather rude that he can’t do it now that it’s personal interest. Really. Abysmal.)
—
Upon arriving home, John changed and took a long, hard look at the damage to his face in the mirror above his impeccably clean bathroom sink. He thought for a second about cancelling or even just skipping out on that job interview, but he needed money and he needed something to do more. Cancelling on short notice (he couldn’t call now - he’d need to cancel the day of ) or flaking out would guarantee he’d never get a spot at that clinic.
He sighed deeply and gazed into his blue eyes beneath the impersonal light. They were so- him. Just him, John Watson; a dull blue, steady and dimming. Steadily dimming. He thought of Sherlock’s eyes, like a silver-lined horizon, and promptly left the bathroom, cutting off that train of thought. He pulled some frozen vegetables from the freezer and held them to the worst of the bruising, avoiding his nose, and hoped that it would help with the swelling. He knew it wouldn’t, really; not enough. But he needed something to do with his hands, and the frost felt nice on his over-hot cheeks.
He dropped into bed sometime near two or three AM, and dozed into loose sleep sometime near four.
The next day, his job interview went predictably bad. The woman working the counter thought he was there for a checkup, and he had to clarify that, no, he’s a doctor, and, yes, I do have a job interview. He then had to stumble his way through an explanation about how he was attacked just yesterday, without giving away who the attacker was, because he had no idea what he was supposed to know or allowed to share. He was overqualified and looked older than he was and he was maybe a bit too distanced, a bit too unfriendly; he was out of practice and a very sorry sight to the pretty doctor interviewing him, and as she told him that they’ll ‘be in touch’, he knew that he’d not gotten the job. He almost wanted to tell her not to bother - keep her calls for people who have a chance, ta - but that would be spiteful (which he definitely is, though he’s the only person in the world to know, and he’d like to keep it that way) and most importantly rude (which he most certainly is not ). So he smiled and nodded and said his politely distanced goodbye, clacking his way out of the clinic, his eyelids heavy and footsteps heavier.
He ambled his way around London, jostled by the crowds of early afternoon. He continued on, even as his leg twinged and squawked and complained, because he felt that he’d taken too far of a tube to turn back so quickly, and grabbing a cab was not only financially unrealistic, but the idea sent a run of shivers up the prominent notches in his spine in a way that was worryingly familiar. He tried not to think about it.
He wandered through the blocks of shops and flats and restaurants of London’s prime real estate, gazing absently at faceless mannequins dressed in the latest fashions and old antique tea sets that reminded him of his Gran’s. Those were smashed to bits, he remembered. Shrapnel of porcelain that sprayed in arcs and cut into his hands when he tried to gather them up. For a little while, smatterings of scars had adorned his palms like freckles until they faded to be nearly invisible.
He jammed his thumb into the heel of his palm, over a particularly deep little white line that cut through the flesh, and sighed through his nose, turning away from the dainty teacup that stared out of the window display. He walked some more, until his leg started throbbing, and collapsed on a bench in the middle of a mildly bustling street. Across the road was a red awning deemed ‘Speedy’s cafe’, and John soaked in the rays of minimal sunlight, tracking the movement of people passing by with vigilant eyes.
A shadow covered the little warmth from the sky, and John dragged his eyes upward in annoyance, only to catch on Sherlock’s face. John blinked, and Sherlock blinked, too, his hand half raised in something akin to a wave. The knot in John’s chest untwisted, and he felt suddenly so grateful to have embarrassed himself in that interview.
“John,” Sherlock said, his voice pleasantly low, and John twitched a smile.
He greeted, “Sherlock,” and it sounded a little too relieved, a little too breathless, but it was hardly a slip up because Sherlock slunk down into the space beside him like he belonged there.
“You did go to that interview, then?”
John nodded, his tentative grin pulling back into a slight grimace.
“Well?” asked Sherlock, eyebrows raised high on his forehead. His curls swept down over them, and John maybe wanted to swipe them away, just a tiny bit. He grasped his cane tightly.
John replied, only a little regretful now, “I didn’t get the job, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Sherlock hummed in acknowledgment, or sympathy, and sighed a world-weary sigh. “More's the pity,” he said wisely, “though they’ll rethink it soon.”
John furrowed his eyebrows and stared at Sherlock’s profile, who studied the street with calculated (false?) disinterest. “What makes you say that?”
Sherlock’s eyes flickered toward him, and it was only when their gazes made contact that he turned his head. “The news cycle has most likely caught wind of the arrest by now, including who, exactly, ensured it.” He waved a hand vaguely in John’s direction, and a tantalizing smirk slashed through his sharply handsome features. “You may get your five seconds of fame soon, John Watson.”
“Oh, brilliant,” John said, sounding like it was anything but. He thought of his face being on the news, or even just his name, and it was the same building annoyance as a faucet that would not stop dripping. He humphed out a small noise to display his discontent.
“Yes, I thought so,” Sherlock murmured, shooting John a teasing expression. His long fingers grasped at the aging bench behind John, arms and legs stretched out like a starfish. The curls continued to flop over his forehead, his head inclined to the side, as loose as a ragdoll. The entire picture he made was so strangely innocent, in complete contrast to the imposing, brilliant man he really was, and John couldn’t help but feel shadowed by comparison. It wasn’t such a difficult feeling to handle, though. You don’t bemoan your lack of power against the sun.
Sherlock prompted, “Did the clinic say they didn’t want you?”
“Said that they’d ‘be in touch’.”
Grimacing, Sherlock answered, “Social niceties. They should have just told you ‘no’ outright, though I see that you’re under no delusions of follow up.”
John felt like there might be something in that sentence that should offend him, but it was all true, and he couldn’t be arsed to complain about honesty. “Mm,” he hummed, “I’m the picture of practicality.” He paused and stared vaguely at the people chewing their lunch at Speedy’s cafe. He’d had an apple in the morning, and was resolute to eat something soon to avoid the whole passing out fiasco of yesterday. That was most definitely not practical. “I don’t think I made a very good impression.”
“Ah, first impressions,” sighed Sherlock, “people really are so particular about those.”
“Except you?”
Sherlock gave him a questioning look, and John clarified, “I don’t suppose that whatever impression I made on you was good, if I made one at all. Yet you’re still talking to me.”
Sherlock stared at him, his attention intense, and John absently snuck a hand beneath the confines of his two layered sleeve to rub at the faded webs of scars. Slowly, Sherlock said, “You took down a murderer, despite a very clear physical disadvantage. I have a hunch that you’ve been rather flippant with your life - you display more self neglecting habits than I do, which is rather impressive -”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I used to be a drug addict,” he spit it out quickly, the words tumbling like he was afraid to say them, but John took it in stride with a subdued raised eyebrow, “but that’s beside the point. You very easily could have let it happen, gone along with whatever game he had planned, even after you discovered the gun was a fake, and yet you didn’t.”
“Do you think I’m suicidal?”
“I think you’re indifferent,” Sherlock amended. “And if I’m right about that - and, as I’ve said, I always am - then you fought against a man twice your size because you found issues with deaths of strangers that you’ve never met, not because of a desire to survive.”
“Most people would,” John replied.
“Not to that extent. They would escape, and have the police handle the rest of it. You have a very strong moral principle, but I suspect that whatever the details are, they’re not exactly within the bounds of the law.”
John gazed at him for a moment. “You’re making a few jumps.”
“I’m… well, I’m going on intuition, to an extent, I’ll admit,” Sherlock mumbled bitterly, “but am I wrong?” He raised his eyebrows pointedly, a smirk tugging at his lips.
John shook his head in sluggish reverence. He huffed out a breath. “I guess not.”
“What I’m saying,” said Sherlock, tapping his foot into the air in a slightly anxious way, “is that you most definitely made an impression.”
“A good one?”
Sherlock replied, “The best.”
John swallowed and paused, dragging his dull thumbnail over the smooth bumps and indents on his forearm. “You have strange standards,” he mumbled.
“Does that bother you?” Sherlock responded. John tilted his head.
“Should it?”
“Maybe.”
John considered that for a moment. He decided, “No. It doesn’t.”
“I wonder what that says about you, doctor,” Sherlock answered idly, but there was a pleased spark in his eye. John watched the golden sunlight chase the glimmer and smiled just a bit. The footsteps and conversations of people passing overtook the tentative silence between them.
Sherlock’s lips pursed, and he parted them, glancing toward John. “I wanted to… that is-” he stopped and frowned.
“Yes?”
“I have… a hypothesis,” he declared, and the skittering nervousness retreated, replaced by that same intensity.
“A… hypothesis,” John parroted.
Sherlock agreed, “Yes. I think I can get rid of your limp.”
Whatever John had anticipated for Sherlock to say next, that was not it. His eyes widened, and he moved his hand onto his thigh, grabbing loosely through the too-big jeans. “You what?”
Sherlock plowed forth, over his incredulity with the determination of a man to his death, “It involves a lot of adrenaline-”
“Sherlock-”
“-and a lot of danger-”
“-danger? What-”
“-and not a little bit of time spent with me.” He stopped abruptly, and John shut his mouth, too. That felt like a warning, or a preparation, or- something. They stared at one another intensely, stretching the moment like long, long taffy.
John wondered, not really knowing what about, “Really?”
“Really.”
Blinking rapidly, bemusement curling his lips upward, John asked, “And that’s it then?”
“Problem?” He looked so innocent, again. Golden light and long limbs and a carefully fond expression.
“You say you can get rid of my limp,” John relayed. “So what do you want?”
Sherlock looked confused by the very question. “Your company.”
“My-” and that wasn’t quite what John had thought he would hear, but it was warm, and his heart stuttered in his chest. “Okay. My company.”
“And permission to observe,” added Sherlock.
“So, it’ll be an… experiment?”
“Something of the sort.”
John considered this. “Am I a test subject?”
Sherlock shook his head, his inky hair bouncing by his temples. “No,” he replied, vehement, “you’ll just be John, and I’ll simply be me - though I supposed that I should inform you that being me involves a lot of observation, and a lot of experimentation. I’m rather… unconventional, some may say.”
It sounded like a suggestion, or an invitation, and John studied him for a second. “I’m not a charity case.”
“This isn’t charity,” Sherlock answered, and even though distrust swam through his veins and pounded against the walls of his skull, John believed him. Sherlock continued after a beat, “It may also do well to tell you that being around me requires a large deal of patience.”
“I’m a stubborn arse,” John offered, sticking a tiny bit of his heart into the words, an implication of maybe .
Sherlock hummed, all approval, and flashed a toothy, shark-like smile. “Even better.”
Their conversation stopped in tandem, and John gazed into the street, beyond the people passing by their bench, beyond the people chewing their lunch and gathering their things on the patio of Speedy’s Cafe, beyond the row of flats containing the soon-to-be-familiar 221B. He thought of a gun barrel and sand that felt like snow in the cold night; of broken teacups and scarred arms and pill bottles that rattled like loose change scattering on the pavement.
“Okay,” he said into the empty air, and Sherlock snapped his head to look at him. “Though if this is just some ruse to have lunch with me, you could just ask.”
Sherlock inclined his head, and John heard a soft, restless tapping of those clever fingers on the bench behind him. “What if it’s a bit of both?”
John grinned at him. “I’d be amenable.”
His tentative joy dancing through his dawn eyes and over his cheeks in a flush, Sherlock said, “Hungry, then?”
And John launched himself in headfirst. “Oh, starving.”